REverberations - Cycling

Cash - Gone

webmaster@reverb.com.au (reverb) — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 18:59:38 -0500

Have a quick look at the image to the right. It's from a Liverpool Champion story about Liverpool Council heavy-handedly enforcing a 10m from an intersection parking rule, violation of which results in a $197 fine. Here, two cars would be fined for not being greater than 10m from the intersection.
Do you, as a member of society, think 10m is warranted? Look at the silver car in the picture - that's the approximate position I parked my car within Liverpool Council's boundaries, from where I cycle to Parramatta on occasion. I don't have a photo or proof, but I believe I would actually have been further from the corner, but I'm not claiming to have been more than 10m.
For the same amount of financial penalty, I could have driven between 10 and 20km/h over the speed limit, an action which statistically impacts the safety of others. Unlike, say, parking 6m from an intersection.
Sure, I'll pay - it's the law after all - however I won't bother to pick small parking spaces anymore for my biodiesel-powered tiny 5L/100km car (last tank 5.3L/100km, including towing 750kg mower/trailer combo at times and driving "with spirit" at others) to fit now so that others can have the larger ones for their land yacht fuel-guzzlers. There were plenty of huge open spaces away from an intersection I could have parked in.
Bugger the rest of you people looking for parking spots, it seems.

New Job!

webmaster@reverb.com.au (reverb) — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 08:22:29 -0500

Well, sorta.

A year or so ago when the team I originally started with in 2001 was transferred to Parramatta office, I used the excuse to stay in town with a different team and also move to a Technical Lead role for the experience.
Now things have changed a little - the team in town got moved across the bridge along with everyone else from that office, and also we have moved out to Picton. The combined two hours each-way commute was bearable for the transition period, but something had to give.
Coupled with this the old team at Parramatta had some internal re-organisiation, and the Team Leader role became vacant. I was asked to step up, and as of Monday, that's what I'm doing.
So yes, I'm now a manager and have the Crackberry to prove it. I view it as a challenge, but figure I wouldn't have been asked if people thought I wasn't capable.
I haven't even had time to unpack my boxes, it's been go-go-go since I walked in the door, so there will be precious little rest time it seems.

As I type this I'm cruising along in the train to Parramatta (using the rare-as-hen's-teeth Cumberland line trains), and out the window I can see where I cycled yesterday. There's a "rail trail" from Liverpool to Parramatta which is pretty good, but could do with the signs being replaced so I don't waste 30 minutes next time following the wrong railway line. But I guess that's what GPS is for. Liverpool station is also a poorly-designed bottle neck for an "interchange" with a cycleway.

I'm still balancing the train times to arrive at the appropriate work-life balance - this took me a little while at North Sydney and some experimentation appears to still be required.

Blue Mountains trip

webmaster@reverb.com.au (reverb) — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 15:41:31 -0500

We got back yesterday from a great long weekend away staying in a house in Wentworth Falls with friends Sarah, Derek and Pearl. It was quite a lot of fun as an over-sized family and a great place to stay.
The photos tell most of the story, but highlights include:

Nice well-renovated two-story house with lots of heating, almost too much. A pleasant change to our previous trip away!
Phoebe mostly behaving herself and sleeping at reasonably sensible hours. I said mostly.
Not thinking about work.
Being out of Sydney in the fresh cool air, yet it only took us 45 minutes to get home (from Glenbrook)
Derek and I competing in the Woodford to Glenbrook mountain bike ride.
Me not breaking anything too serious, although I have some nasty grazes and a very sore arm which will need X-raying.
Derek and I having sole custody of the young ladies for a few hours, taking them to the Leura Toy and Railway museum, which I'd describe as an impressive house and gardens filled with an interesting array of old toys and a poorly-displayed collection of model railways.
Playing with the new camera
A break from the dog. But we missed her!

Southern Sydney Waterways Ride

webmaster@reverb.com.au (reverb) — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 19:41:55 -0500

I took advantage of the nice weather to head off on a aimless ride around the area today. If the forecast is to be believed, that might be all the riding I get in the next week or so.

Robertson

webmaster@reverb.com.au (reverb) — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 18:32:23 -0500

I'm in the middle of a week off work (well earned, in my humble opinion!), and one of the things we wanted to do was have a couple of days break from Sydney.

A big of searching landed us with Robertson, a small town half-way between Bowral and the coast. We'd stopped there on a steam train ride and despite the horrendous rain that day (Robertson has a huge annual rainfall) we had fond memories of it.

After discounting most of the accommodation (why are Aussie B&Bs so expensive??), we landed on the huge old manor of the town, Fountaindale. This is known to most people we've mentioned the trip to as Ranleigh House, which it was called for most of its life. I sold it to Liz as coming across a bit like Fawlty Towers, and once we arrived, we found I was more correct that we had hoped I would be!

It wasn't bad, but for the prices they charge (lucky we were getting a hefty discount) you'd expect heating in the rooms. Especially when you arrive with a six month old and my wife who would probably have preferred to be on the coast somewhere very very warm :)

The charm of the place would have been great in its day, but it needs some serious work to compete - we won't be returning unles they do some major work.

Anyway, the town was nice enough - one pub, a few cafés, galleries, etc. Disturbingly many places recently closed for business though, which is never good to see in a small town.

I'd taken the bike and set off one afternoon when the weather permitted for a ride up the little-used railway line. Fountaindale actually had it's own station, which would have been a grand way to arrive back in 1924 when it was first built.

On the way back home yesterday we stopped at the newly-opened Illawarra Fly treetop-walk. This was quite a bit of fun, although not one for the vertigo-afflicted!

All three of us had a great time walking around, even when it was rather high up! They'd done a reasonable job of making it fit in with the surroundings, and it's all sustainably done with water tanks, no flashy signs, etc. Worth a visit if you're in the area, for the great views across to the coast, and the chance to bounce the cantilever sections to annoy those not big fans of heights in your group :)

Phoebe slept mostly in her porta-cot, and some times with us in the King-sized bed, which was a pleasant bonding experience for us.

Woodford to Glenbrook Careflight Charity Ride - Sponsor Me!

webmaster@reverb.com.au (reverb) — Tue, 27 May 2008 11:14:14 -0500

A few friends and I are entering the Woodford to Glenbrook Classic, a ride which aims to raise proceeds for NRMA Careflight.

I'll be pestering people to sponsor me, so here's some advance warning to save a bit of cash up for when I find you :)

Or even better, come ride with us for added fun factor.

Hopefully my newly-rebuilt mountain bike will be up to the task, or more accurately hopefully I am up to the task, as mechanic and rider!

We're making a weekend out of it, staying with some friends up the mountains for a nice winter weekend getaway.

Jake Pics

webmaster@reverb.com.au (reverb) — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 09:12:59 -0500

I owed some feedback to the people in a bike forum that helped me choose my latest bike, and as such there are now a bunch of pictures of it online, if you are curious.

The weather actually looks good enough to get back on it again this week - I'm a bit of a wuss in the rain, although I pretend that's because I don't want to get the contents of my bag wet.

Sydney Cyclist is a good self-descriptive website, and this is the aforementioned-forum, full of helpful people.

Aaah the blog...

webmaster@reverb.com.au (reverb) — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 09:37:46 -0600

It's a sign that life is busy when I don't post here for ages. It's been beyond busy recently. I stare at the front page now and then and note the stagnation, knowing only I can change it. And then something else comes and steals my attention.

No matter, life is going well! Miss Phoebe is for the most part much improved. She still has times when she has been awake for hours and is so tired that she won't sleep or feed. They're tough and she needs constant attention to sort her out. Liz is unfortunately copping most of this as I'm busy at work and still with bands. Several times of the years I've considered dropping back my band commitment, and each time we've discussed it and agreed it can continue. Now I'm not so sure, it's just not fair on Liz to make her do so much while I'm off having a good time elsewhere.

As part of the process of spending more time at home, I purchased a shiny new bike. On the first ride into work on it I cut ten minutes or so of my fastest time on the old bike, so there should be less time spent commuting and more at home. I spent a long time researching options, considering a few compromises on eBay, but ended up getting exactly what I wanted. An expensive way to do it, but warranty and reliability are key on a commuter.

It's what they call a Cyclocross bike, dedicated to the sport of Cyclocross, which pretty much nobody knows about. The formula is to take a fast road bike, make it more rugged, make it more comfortable, and add practical features. So it's a bit slower than a "real" road bike but as you can see above, it's still plenty fast!

And at the other end of the commute - work - things are changing too. My team is being restructured out to the Parramatta office, and I'm was really not looking forward to the extra hour's train journey. The bike ride was far more direct and looked not to be too much longer than the ride to the city, but I can't ride every day, due mostly to weather and carrying instruments. From an organisational perspective it makes sense for that team to be with the rest of the people who do similar things, but from a personal perspective Parramatta has nothing at all to appeal to me, and eats into the time with my new family. Even if I don't go out in the city every day, I could if I wanted, whereas what little there is at Parramatta seems to shut down after business hours.

So I got offered a position as technical lead in a different, but similar team, who are remaining in Surry Hills. I've decided to take it for six months, to see how the management thing suits me. If it doesn't very well then I can either revert to my old job out at Parramatta or look to the market for something different.

Enough for now, I need coffee.

Required Space

webmaster@reverb.com.au (reverb) — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 06:51:14 -0600

A Pictorial comparison of the amount of space required to transport the same number of passengers by car, bus or bicycle.

Lycra

webmaster@reverb.com.au (reverb) — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 18:19:41 -0500

So, when I first started cycling I said strongly "NO LYCRA!" and today I found I had broken this pledge.

I blame the Netti factory sale.

Suffice to say it is the fastest and most comfortable ride I've ever done. And also the most conscious I've ever been of my body.

Trust me, there's nothing to show off.

Things

webmaster@reverb.com.au (reverb) — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 09:15:32 -0500

Well, you can probably guess from the slackness in blogging I'm showing here that life has been busy. The most obvious reason is of course the baby who is showing all signs of being healthy, and arriving early December. The midwife thinks possibly earlier, but we'd rather it not because she is away until the end of November.

There's modern cloth nappies galore here now, and buckets for dirty ones, plus of course clothes, wraps, furniture, car seat, pram, you name it. I've heard it described as the biggest consumer spend a couple goes through (after housing), and it's truly scary what some companies tell you that you 'need' to have.

We've been to birthing and parenting classes and spent countless hours reading stuff online so apparently we now know all, true experts in the field. Except it will of course have no bearing on the reality of actually having a child to look after 24 hours a day.

It was interesting to compare out situation to others in the class though - we're much better off and more prepared than several others, so that gives us a bit of hope.

Trying to organise a couple of short holidays before the due date too.

Some other quick point-form news:

Rain. Yay.
I did the Spring Cycle and home again, personal best time. Then we slept most of the afternoon.
We have a new home phone, this one is VoIP from MyNetFone. Pretty amazing deal, recommended.
Renovations are all done, except we need some new blinds now. Thanks to our parents for helping out with bits and pieces.
The car had it's one year (and first!) service, no problems found. We also have some fuel containers to stop us trekking out to Marrickville all the time. It's going to get a lot less use now that Liz has finished work.
Had a fair few gigs with both bands recently, two of which have been the best gigs we've done with the respective bands. There's few more before the end of the year (and my free time!).

Cycling Safety in Sydney

webmaster@reverb.com.au (reverb) — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 12:22:22 -0500

So, after another successful and safe ride to work this morning (once I'd fixed a flat tire, grr), it's nice to see that the fact everyone seems to 'know' about how amazingly unsafe it is to cycle in Sydney are simply wrong (Original SMH article here).

The main take-away point is that despite a 50% increase in the number of cyclists in the last three years, the number of cyclists killed has halved in the last ten (7 down to 3), and the percentage injured has declined.

So, since 50% of car trips in Sydney are under five kilometres, why not join me and the 3000 other people that ride into the CBD daily? I ride 21km each way, and I still feel so much more refreshed and ready to face the day after riding than being crammed into a CitySnail sardine-tin train.

Don't even get me started on surrounding yourself with 1-3 tonnes of metal and burning up several litres of fossil fuels only to sit in traffic that plenty of others seem to think is a great idea. The truly crazy thing is that I'm much faster through the traffic than they are anyway!

Again with the famousness by proxy

webmaster@reverb.com.au (reverb) — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 12:44:08 -0500

A little birdy pointed me at this telegraph article. The "friend" referred to in the first paragraph is someone you know if you are reading this blog...

Oh, and nice work Dave :) We used to have a rule in SES that if you got your mug in the paper you owed everyone a beer, I think it's time to resurrect that.

An extended version of the story is in the current issue of PushOn, too.

Sydney Planning

webmaster@reverb.com.au (reverb) — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 09:47:44 -0500

Cycled up to The Rocks last night for a truly inspiring talk by Jan Gehl. This is the Danish guy who has turned global cities into places you might actually want to live, the closest success to home being inner-city Melbourne.

In a move with a change of making me respect a politician, Sydney's Lord Mayor Clover Moore has engaged Jan to provide his views on Sydney, which makes for amazing reading.

(There will apparently be a podcast/vodcast of the talk available here - well worth your time).

I think after our European travels, the main reason I want to live in places like Paris, Amsterdam, Munich or Copenhagen is that they are just great, friendly places to be. Cars have their place outside the center, but the right there in the middle is a place for people. To meet, to be entertained, to relax, and to watch.

Sydney's CBD just is no use for that. The only public spaces worth talking about are disjoint, and at all times as a pedestrian you are less important than the car. Jan's work on other more visionary cities is but a dream here in Sydney.

After the talk, I changed into my cycle gear and pedaled back to Kogarah. In the city traffic, making the best of what cycle 'lanes' are on offer. More nightmare than dream.

Clover, I challenge you to step up to the plate and implement 100% of the recommendations when you get them later this year, as Melbourne did. Perhaps we will be less inclined to consider the Southern city a place to live, which we did much to our disgust after traveling there last year and being blown away by how good an Australian city could be.

Live Green Festival

webmaster@reverb.com.au (reverb) — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 13:42:18 -0500

The City of Sydney is running a Live Green festival tomorrow, I'm going to try and make it. Have to get off my lazy bum and cycle in, I've slackened off a bit with the recent nasty weather.

Everyone's photos of the festival (including mine hopefully) will be on Flickr, which is cool in itself.

Dear Van Driver

webmaster@reverb.com.au (reverb) — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 11:51:05 -0500

Despite cycling to work fairly regularly for almost a year now, I've thus far managed to think the vast vast majority of drivers are considerate of cyclists. I can count on one hand people that have actually actively done something very stupid or deliberately dangerous to me.

Stopped at the head of the left of two lanes of traffic this morning, I waited like a good boy for the green light. When it came, I filled up most of the lane and cycled with reasonable speed (on my road bike these days) towards the next set of lights.

The Van Driver, safe inside his 1.5 tonnes of metal, decided to drive around me extremely closely, pushing me to the left into the kerb and the other driver in the right lane who knows where. I yelled an "Oi!" at him, struggled to keep my balance, and rode on to meet him at the next light. (Yes, city drivers, you aren't actually faster than cyclists, you just get to the next light quicker).

Upon arriving at that light, I noticed he was holding up his registration sticker at me in the window, insinuating presumably that since he pays rego he has a right to be on the road, and a right to push those off it that don't.

I resisted the temptation to stop and talk to him, and rode onwards to work.

Here's things I wasn't doing, before you say "stupid cyclists, get off the road and/or out of my way":

Running a red light
Cycling on the pavement
Being invisible (I have a bright yellow vest)
Cutting down the side of traffic around him (which is actually legal, but I am aware it annoys drivers. I didn't do it here though. I stopped first, he stopped behind me).
Being slow (I met him at the next light, and matched his speed most of the way there)

Here's a couple of facts about this situation.

The Australian Road Rules (PDF) state that "rules in the Australian Road Rules apply to bicycle riders in the same way as they apply to drivers", meaning that bikes have equal rights on the road, and, if you read the rest of that document, actually more. The rules do not state that your bike must be registered in any way to use the road.
There are plenty of laws I disagree with. That doesn't give me a right to disobey them though. If he believes cyclists should pay registration he should either lobby his local representative to get the law changed, or put up with it.
Running every available cyclist off the road because he believes they should pay to be there is not a valid way of dealing with this situation.
That said, I actually DO pay registration. It's for the car that sits in the driveway all day, not doing any damage to the roads. Hence the amount I pay in registration as a ratio of how much driving (and hence damage to the roads) I actually do is higher than you, who drives everywhere. We're currently at 7000km on our car in approaching a year of ownership, and most of that was a trip to Adelaide.

Reading around, he's far from alone in his beliefs, but I hadn't personally encountered one of his ilk until this morning.
May I spend more time with the 95% of tolerant motorists. I do my best to stay out of your way, it would be nice if you could too.

Catchup Blogging

webmaster@reverb.com.au (reverb) — Sat, 03 Mar 2007 17:46:44 -0600

OK, News time. It's been a while.
I've uploaded some photos to my Flickr account which have titles showing a pictorial version of what we've been doing recently.
There's some from Adelaide (1 2 3 4), some from our recent weekend back up to the Hunter Valley to celebrate our wedding anniversary (yep, it's been over a year now...) (1 2), and even an ugly product of our veggie patch.

Margaret's house has been on the market for a while and is now sold, she's looking for a place to buy and has a few in mind. She may be moving in with us during the change-over period.

So we've re-organised the house a bit. We've now got a separate (small) room devoted to music. It's good to have everything out and in the one place, and I've been inspired to do some recording, helped out with a computer audio interface I found cheap on eBay. Still trying to decide what software I want to use with it though.

The junk that used to be in that room has now sort-of migrated to the spare room, but it could be consolidated to make room for Margaret should the need arise.

Around the house, I've been cleaning out gutters and getting things organised in preparation for the arrival of our water tanks. The fact that it's been raining a lot recently has been annoying us, thinking of the wastage. It looks like we'd have to vote capital-L Liberal to get the government to do something about water recycling, so becoming as detached as possible from it all is appealing.

Put some of the wine from our Hunter trip (came back with three cases!) under the house in a sort-of cellar arrangement. The conditions are good but it's hard to get to. Should be good for medium-long-term storage though.

We headed off to the Whiskey Experience again a few days ago - a great fun evening which we figure is just to raise brand awareness. Not that many people around us were aware of things around themselves by the end of proceedings!

One of Liz's birthday celebrations this year was a trip to the Löwenbräu Keller, something I haven't done for years and an evening we thoroughly enjoyed. The band there seems to do the same show every night, but it's very entertaining. Plus we get to drink great beer and practice our German.

... Which is good, because Sebastian Schnelle (whom we stayed with at least three times in Europe 2002-3 and caught up with again early last year) is back in the country to do his PhD in Brisbane. He and his girlfriend Jana flew into Sydney last week and we caught up a few times. She's still in learn-English mode, so we had a few conversations with me speaking German and her English, and my lack of skill there seemed to give her more confidence.

Oh, and I buggered my knee badly about a month ago, which is the worst it's ever been. I've had plenty of days working from home and far less cycling. I have a specialist appointment next week, so hopefully I can get something done about it.

Another Jersey Kerb gig happened last Friday - the first with Jono playing keyboards and me back on bass after Ed left for England. We played pretty well I thought, but the crowd was both thin and lacking energy. I think we have a job for our manager to get us sorted in a new venue or with some more aggressive advertising. Still great fun though.

Surely that's enough topic-hopping for now. Congratulations if you made it this far!

Knee: Jerk

webmaster@reverb.com.au (reverb) — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 09:37:25 -0600

Those who've known me for a while probably are aware of the generally crappyness of my knees. On the weekend, after an intensive gardening session (yes, we're getting old...), I didn't quite step properly on a raised concrete section of our backyard and ended up with nasty sounds and much pain in my right knee.
I've pretty much learned in every day life what not to do to minimise the occurrances of this problem, resulting in this being the first time this has happened since Paris.

I attempted to walk up to the shops yesterday but only made it about four houses before giving up, and as such yesterday and today I'm working from home. It's nice to have that option, but it doesn't take long to miss being out and about cycling.

On Yer Bike

webmaster@reverb.com.au (reverb) — Fri, 05 Jan 2007 15:24:25 -0600

Continuing the trend this year, Bicycles outsold cars in Australia. There were less new cars sold also. So, given that people buy more bikes, you'd expect them to be used as transport much more also. But why isn't this the case?

While down in Adelaide, I had chosen a campsite for us right next to the university where we needed to be, however it would still have been at least a half-hour walk to get there. No matter, about ten minutes on the bike and it was done. Bass strapped to my back, music stand on the rack at the rear and everything else I needed in my pannier bag.

Liz came the second night too, and we rode home together. However, we needed food, so we stopped, grabbed two pizzas, chucked them on the rack also and kept riding. It was actually the most fun we'd had in ages, loaded to the hilt with everything we needed for the night, no cars, no fossil fuels, no emissions. Well, after the pizza perhaps, but that's another story.

What will it take for people in this world to wake up to the fact that we can't continue using cars to get everywhere, especially for highly wasteful short journeys? Statistically more of you reading this have bikes than cars, so put a rack on the back, get some bags and ride! You'll get fit and enjoy it much more while you're at it.

NYE back in Sydney

webmaster@reverb.com.au (reverb) — Mon, 01 Jan 2007 06:35:41 -0600

Got back to Sydney yesterday afternoon after a few days down in Adelaide. The main reason was that I had been invited to play at the Adelaide Jazz Convention, and by a crazy stroke of luck (as previously mentioned), Liz won the draw to have that block of time off work. Her mother Margaret came too.

We managed to pile everything into the car, and our bikes onto a rack on the back. It worked out to be a reasonably comfortable way to get down there, especially with so much gear (wouldn't have been much fun on a plane or the train, both of which were far more expensive).

The little car performed flawlessly for the entire 3000-odd kilometres there, back, and side-tripping. Just eats up the distance, overtakes and climbs hills with ease in fifth gear. Also cruise control and aircon most important for drives like this. Returned 5 - 6.5L/100km for the journey, most of which was at 110km/h with the aircon on, three people, our gear, and the bikes wrecking the aerodynamics at the back.

Anyway, the Jazz festival went pretty well. We were doing some Dave Brubeck material, as our pianist Claude is a big fan and and excellent player of his material. I was on bass as we couldn't find a player from up here, playing my new five-string fretless Yamaha which got many compliments for it's great sound. I must have been doing something alright as well, being asked to play with a few other bands over the week also.

The whole concept of the place is just a bunch of Jazz guys and gals with their instruments, jamming in a semi-organised manner. The advertising was appalling, resulting in almost no locals turning up to check it out, but those who made it to our gigs seemed reasonably happy, despite our ring-in drummer having consumed several bottles of wine each day before attempting to play seven, nine, three or maybe four beats per bar, all interchanging in that great Brubeck way. Suffice to say I ignored him for the majority of the time and hoped he would follow me. Which to his drunken credit he did.

Had taken my sax down for a blow also but didn't end up doing that, as we spent quite a bit of time sight-seeing instead. Glenelg beach proved a good spot to drive to for a swim and a wander, plus on the last day we took our bikes as well. From there Liz and I rode into the CBD, meeting with Margaret who had taken the tram instead. We wandered through Rundle Mall, lunched on Rundle Street, took in the Botanic Gardens and then Liz and I rode around the greenery which encircles the city as Margaret went back to the tram.

Completing our 30km of riding Liz and I went back to Glenelg along the excellent flat straight cycle-friendly roads which are so common in Adelaide. It's a shame we live in the least cycle-friendly capital city that Australia has to offer, it would be lovely to do this sort of thing more often.

Another swim at Glenelg in the ocean before loading the bikes back onto the car and heading back to the caravan park, right near Flinders Uni where the convention was being held.

On the way down we had overnighted at Mildura, but on the way back we stopped at Balranald instead, having left Adelaide via Mount Lofty lookout, Hahndorf and then the Barossa Valley.

Once we made it back to Sydney last night, we couldn't convince ourselves to get back in the car and drive anywhere to parties, which is rather anti-social as we would have loved to meet up with our friends.

Instead, we enjoyed the night together - a rare event for NYE when one of the partnership is a nurse! Would have been nice to have stayed away a little longer, but poor Liz is back at work this afternoon.

My New Old Bike

webmaster@reverb.com.au (reverb) — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 08:01:26 -0600

$79 from eBay. Far from perfect but quite ride-able after a new set of brake pads.
My commuter bike is nominally a mountain bike, although with semi-slick hybrid tyres, so I've wanted a racer to try out the different riding style for a while now.

And hey, it even matches my cycling category image.

Odds of Dying

webmaster@reverb.com.au (reverb) — Mon, 04 Dec 2006 10:45:51 -0600

To all those people that have told me to "be careful!!! You'll die!!!!" since I've started cycling - please take a look at this great National Geographic graph.

According to that, I'm less likely to die cycling than driving, motorcycling or even, surprisingly, being a pedestrian.

Other top surprise in there is how likely suicide is.

Gadget Lust Strikes Again

webmaster@reverb.com.au (reverb) — Fri, 17 Nov 2006 11:46:19 -0600

I held out for longer than most around me expected - but the shiny things got the better of me in the end. I've just ordered a new MacBook, stacked to the hilt with good bits.
My poor Powerbook has been working nicely for a while, but the combination of wanting a smaller machine to cycle most days with and the slowness of the current one mostly due to lack of RAM meant that I've been looking for a while at what was on offer.
The fact that Apple has made the RAM upgrades much cheaper now, along with bunging in the latest Core 2 Duo processor (finally) meant that I'd run out of excuses.
Even the tax situation will work out as I've pretty much finished writing off the current machine.

I was thinking about the MacBook Pros but the new prices for those are crazy, and I can't justify the $1000 difference vs. the Macbook for what amounts to a bigger screen (that I don't want), marginally faster CPU, a Firewire 800 port (that I've never used) and a better graphics card. I have another machine for playing games on, so the awesome graphics card in my current laptop has been completely wasted since I've had it.

Anyone want a pre-loved-by-Mac-addict Powerbook before it hits eBay?

Spring Cycle 2006

webmaster@reverb.com.au (reverb) — Mon, 23 Oct 2006 17:23:21 -0500

Path cycled 22/10/2006

Feeling a little worse for wear today after a huge cycling day - easily our biggest ever.
It started out with Alina waking us just after five am - she must have known that we needed to get up and organised for the day.
CityRail managed to put on a special train from Penshurst that went directly to North Sydney - our target for the day because it was the start of the Spring Cycle for this year (and the past two we have been to).
The weather wasn't helping - very cold as we pedalled up the hill to the station at this end and even adding some rain to the west as we went across the harbour bridge to scare us about the day's ride. Up the hill to the start at St. Leonards park we were rained on - not what you really want with 50km riding in front of you.
I was a little worried too because in my typical style, I decided that I could make my bike better the night before, and had pulled the bearings apart in my front wheel. What fun! Little ball bearings bouncing all over the place, and then you have to get them back in again...
A quick call to Jono when we arrived at the park confirmed what we had guessed - he was late again, just like last year! No matter, Liz, Dave E and I headed off in the rain to push along the ride.
It seemed to go much faster than last year, and with Dave and I commuting by bike two or three times a week we are much fitter, so this year we kept Liz company most of the time, making a pretty relaxing pace for us boys!

By the end at Olympic Park I felt I could have kept going a lot longer - we sat down for a rest and a chat with some of the other RTA guys on the team, and after a while Jono and uni-mate Pascal turned up. The concept of riding further sounded just fine, so we got out the maps, and decided that riding all the way home was a great idea! The weather had cleared up quite a lot by now, aiding our decision, but it still wasn't too hot.

So, finding our way out of the Olympic park in the right direction was actually the biggest challenge - then across the M4 and through the back streets down to Cooks River. Along there for many miles before basically joining on where I cycle home from work - through Earlwood then along the M5.

It would have been nice to have been able to shortcut the distance, but there are no good other ways that don't involve riding on lots of roads.

Here's a map of our ride, and if you have Google Earth installed, this link should let you follow the route in more detail.

Total distance: 77.913 km
Homebush to Penshurst: 27.682 km

Getting Faster...

webmaster@reverb.com.au (reverb) — Mon, 09 Oct 2006 19:58:03 -0500

Today's stats for cycling to work from Penshurst:

Max speed: 48.5 km/h
Average speed: 18.5 km/h
Distance: 21.1 km
Trip Time: 1:08:51

Wow - compare with only three weeks ago!.

It's actually annoying that the average drops so low - quite a lot of time is spent waiting to cross through traffic, or at red lights on side streets. On good riding stretches I actually find myself averaging about 35 km/h.

Cycled from work to band rehearsal at Croydon via the ANZAC Bridge last week which was most enjoyable - once I found the way through - there's lots of passageways for cycles hidden around Sydney.

I spent a little time on the weekend servicing my bike and learning how the gears get adjusted, which has made quite a difference to the ride. Also now have a rack and an old bag adapted as a pannier to carry my clothes, lunch and laptop in.

So yes, we have a new car, but Liz will be doing most of the driving of it, and even she expressed interest in finding a good cycling route to work...

Today's Stats

webmaster@reverb.com.au (reverb) — Fri, 15 Sep 2006 10:21:27 -0500

Still pedalling, the weather's much better for it this week which is nice too. Rode in Tuesday and also today. This morning's ride looked like this:

Max speed: 47.1 km/h
Average speed: 15.9 km/h
Distance: 20.4 km
Trip Time: 1:16:51

This included stopping at a servo to fill the tyres up and (as usual) long waits to cross the M5.
My worst "hot spot" is getting through Newtown, but I've worked out a good way to do that and as long as there are no maniac drivers it's pretty straightforward now.

Meaghan's boyfriend Dave has been inspired to steal Meaghan's brother's bike and ride in with me some time next week, so that's good news.

I'm not completely happy with the service recently done on my bike - the gears and brakes aren't perfect. Ideally I'd like to learn how to do it all myself but I usually just make things worse. Anyone know a good resource for DIY bike servicing?

Made it!

webmaster@reverb.com.au (reverb) — Tue, 05 Sep 2006 10:02:28 -0500

20.7km in 1:13:55 cycling to work this morning. Quite an improvement on the weekend's trial run.

There's showers at work and I'm sitting feeling quite refreshed at my desk now.

Edit: And home in 1:10, which actually seems to have more uphills in it. It's a bit hard to carry instruments on the bike, plus I don't have proper lights yet so might ride in again Friday.

Not entirely full of hot air

webmaster@reverb.com.au (reverb) — Sun, 03 Sep 2006 22:14:58 -0500

Although I'm forced to admit yesterday was hot, that's not the point of this post. I actually felt like a ride yesterday, and made it all the way into town, circled around my work and then rode straight back again.

I've mapped out the route here on Bikely, where you can follow it through, see notes along the way, etc. This can be dumped onto my ever-useful GPS which I have strapped to the bike, giving me directions on the way in and out.

That doesn't mean I look at them all the time, resulting in quite a few wrong turns as I found my way around!

Once I'm a bit fitter, I'd like to target one hour for the trip, but on my first ever attempt I made 1:45, including getting lost, reading maps, and learning my way through a couple of dodgy intersections. Plus there's that fitness factor.

So, hopefully once a week or so I'll have a great ride - it was thoroughly enjoyable, and interesting to see the different councils' attitudes to cycleways or complete lack thereof.

Let Me Out

webmaster@reverb.com.au (reverb) — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 10:37:19 -0500

Crazily hot on the (non-airconditioned) train into work today - and it's still winter. At least the government appears willing to let us out in case of terrorism, crashes, etc.
Not sure what ill-advised person decided that we should be locked in a big metal box In Case of Emergency, but surely the ability to run away up an embankment or something is far more important than protecting the Darwin award candidates who want to run along the other tracks, not realising there could be oncoming trains. Besides, with the new timetables there's hardly any other trains and when there are they are running far slower anyway.

I have a weekly ticket at the moment but am organising myself access to lockers, showers and a guide with the plan of cycling in to work, at least on a trial basis, starting next week. I know it will take longer, but the freedom combined with the exercise (which I have long had trouble fitting into my busy schedule) may yet be worth it.

Got my copy of Bike-it yesterday, which is excellent, and coupled with the community-driven Bikely there's plenty of info about good ways to get around.

It's a New Car!

webmaster@reverb.com.au (reverb) — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 20:08:01 -0500

OK, so I've used that title once or twice before, but this time we mean it.

We've never owned a new car before, but yesterday, after lots and lots of research, saving, and deliberating, we went out and plonked down a deposit on a shiny new Volkswagen Polo TDi, ticking plenty of option boxes. (Reviews: #1 #2 #3)

This is a small-medium car, plenty big enough for us for a while, crazily economical (6-7 l/100km around the city or 4-5 on the open road), and it's capable of towing our soon-to-be-back-in-the-water boat.
The last two items on that list above come courtesy of the fact that it is a diesel car. We've loved both Percy the Peugeot and more recently Schnee Three the Citroën, both of which have been diesel powered, and finally you can get good enough diesel in Australia to make buying one here a sensible move.

The fact that you can run these cars on biodiesel is a great plus for the environment. We can even create our own fuel out of waste oil from local take-aways should we so choose! Otherwise, either our local servo carries B50 (meaning 50% biodiesel) or we can buy B100 (100% biodiesel) from The Biodiesel Station in Marrickville (possibly closed at the moment).

As for towing, being a diesel means that this little car actually has more towing power (ie. torque) than a Subaru Forester, while using about half the fuel when you aren't towing - making it the perfect dual-purpose car for us.

I should talk a little about the Prius here, as we have mentioned several times we were thinking about one of those. The big killer was that the manufacturers don't want you to tow with them at all. Perhaps as the technology gets a little more mature, we could have a biodiesel-powered hybrid which the manufacturers supported towing with.

So it's still a little while until delivery, giving us time to save up the remaining cash, but it's done now - too late to change our minds!

A quick last note here that yes, we do need a car living in suburban Sydney. I'd love to say that wasn't the case, but the buses are of little use, the trains pretty good from our station but don't go everywhere you want, and it's pretty hilly for cycling.

Getting across suburbs to my grandparents' place or Liz's mum's place is not really possible with any of the above options (except cycling, which I have done on occasions, but isn't possible with lots of gear, a dog, gifts, instruments, etc.)